It’s Been 331 Days…

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 331 days!

The Past

Whew! It’s been a while! I’m so glad to say that during the past 331 days, we didn’t give up bee keeping. I started a new blog related to becoming an author. Between setting up two technical writing businesses and building a clientele, the HoneyBees and Me blog went to the “NICE” to do pile. Sadly, I collected all kinds of pictures with the plans to post another blog. I never got around to doing it, until now.

The Present

It is April 4, 2016. The cold winds are blowing. The wisteria is trying to get its bloom complete before the next deep freeze hits. I’m not sure it will make it. You should be glad to know that we’re still in the hobby honeybee keeping business.

Here’s a picture of our weeping cheery tree the end of March.

Weeping Cherry Tree, March 2016

When you walked under it, it hummed with the whirl of thousands of honeybees and bumble bees and other types of bees soaking up its sweet nectar.

Last year, we had four hives, but only harvested off of two. Those two hives were extra prolific. We managed to harvest over 90 pounds of wonderful golden honey. It tastes so divine, too!

Going into the winter season, the four hives were strong. They appeared to be strong until the last snow we had in early March. We lost two hives. Now, this week, we are expecting temperatures to drop drastically each night. So far, today, the temp has hung around 60 degrees F. That’s not too bad, but the winds are just awful. Rains are supposed to come or maybe freezing rain and snow at some point.

Hobbit King and I aren’t sure how our little girls will fair. We’re hoping they’ll do well.

In the meantime…

While we are waiting for this cold snap to move out of the region and we are hoping the honeybees will make it through this week, I thought I’d post for you some of the pictures of life with honeybees I’ve taken since May 8, 2014. Enjoy!

Extruded frame; notice the comb remaining for bees to use again.

Removing caps from honey cells using a cold knife.

Frames placed in a 9-frame extruder.

Honey flowing from the extruder into the honey bucket fitted with two filters.

Two sizes of Muth jars, corked, and readied for labeling and packaging.

We then wrapped the jars in honey tissue paper for the final packaged look.